ROCK OF AGES: The jukebox will be set to 1987 in this Tony-nominated musical at the Colonial.

Artistic directors have suddenly morphed into event planners. Both the American Repertory Theater’s Diane Paulus and the Huntington Theatre Company’s Peter DuBois speak of programming not plays but “events.” One such project — erstwhile Dresden Doll Amanda Palmer’s star turn as the androgynous MC of the ART’s Cabaret (at Oberon through October 29) — is already upon us. And it’s clear that it’ll be hard to promenade on the local Rialto this fall without bumping into one or another multi-faceted, multi-headed, or festival-style event.

FIFTH ANNUAL PROVINCETOWN TENNESSEE WILLIAMS THEATER FESTIVAL | September 23-26 | “Under the Influence” is this year’s theme, but it’s not what you think. There are plays making reference to Williams inspirations Eugene O’Neill and Hart Crane and the world premiere (by Beau Jest Moving Theatre) of Williams’s never-produced American Gothic, a riff on Grant Wood’s iconic painting of fun farmers. | Provincetown, various venues | $15–$47.50; $125–$500 festival pass | 866.789.TENN or twptown.org

THE LARAMIE RESIDENCY | September 24–October 2 | The birth of ArtsEmerson is an event in itself, and this residency by Tectonic Theater Project is among its first offerings. Moisés Kaufman’s troupe brings to town both The Laramie Project, which was culled from interviews conducted in the wake of the brutal 1998 murder of gay man Matthew Shepard near the Wyoming city of the title, and the world premiere of The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, which was born of a return visit to learn how the hate crime had impacted the community in the long term. | Cutler Majestic Theatre, 219 Tremont St, Boston | $15–$79 | 617.824.8000 or artsemerson.org

ROCK OF AGES | October 6-17 | The jukebox is tuned to 1987 in this 2009 Tony-nominated musical set on the Sunset Strip and channeling big hair and heavy metal. Promised are mini-flashlights for the audience, an “arena-rock love story” complete with deafening sound, and a score culled from the hits of Journey, Styx, and Twisted Sister, among others. | Colonial Theatre, 106 Boylston St, Boston | $33-$92 | 800.982.2787 or broadwayacrossamerica.com

11 must-see plays of early 2011 With such tantalizers in the wings, it’s hard to grieve over the exit of all the Rockettes, Scrooges, and tipsy Welshmen that see out the old year.

Review: SpeakEasy makes the best of Nine Music had better be the food of love in Nine , because there's little else in the Tony-winning show to indicate why its middle-aged, three-timing protagonist is such a chick magnet.

Review: The Druid’s fine trip to Inishmaan Although Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan is the least likely of his plays to provoke a riot, as John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World did at its 1907 Dublin premiere, it is the most Synge-like of the Anglo-Irish dramatist’s works.

ArtsEmerson celebrates a legendary director Sometimes Samuel Beckett is baggy pants whittled to the contours of a Giacometti sculpture. Eminent British director Peter Brook, now 86, not only gets that but also relates to it.

Abraham and company deliver the goods The Rialto intersects Wall Street in Theatre for a New Audience's steely, droll, and deeply disquieting The Merchant of Venice (presented by ArtsEmerson at the Cutler Majestic Theatre through April 10).

Laurie Anderson is still really good If I hesitate to offer a review of Laurie Anderson's Delusion (at ArtsEmerson's Paramount Center through October 2), it's because I fear the whole thing will be just one big spoiler.

ARTSEMERSON'S METAMORPHOSIS | February 28, 2013 Gisli Örn Garðarsson’s Gregor Samsa is the best-looking bug you will ever see — more likely to give you goosebumps than make your skin crawl.

CLEARING THE AIR WITH STRONG LUNGS AT NEW REP | February 27, 2013 Lungs may not take your breath away, but it's an intelligent juggernaut of a comedy about sex, trust, and just how many people ought to be allowed to blow carbon into Earth's moribund atmosphere.